A Tale of Two Benjamites

There are many  astonishing parallels between Saul the first king of Israel and Saul-turned-Paul the Christian leader. Saul, the king of Israel from the tribe of Benjamin, was 30 years old when God selected him to lead the Hebrew people. When he was called for his mission, his heart was changed in one day and he started to prophesy. After that he was spiritually respected and revered by the people, and the saying became, “Is Saul also among the prophets?”[1]

Unfortunately, King Saul did not stay true to his calling. He “did evil in the eyes of AHYH” and was finally rejected by God when he disobeyed God’s  explicit commands.[2] It is interesting to note that his disobedience was tied directly to his desire to offer blood sacrifices and burnt offerings.[3] While we only get a one-sided or groomed import of the ancient story from the book of Samuel that seems to support that Samuel was in favor of these sacrifices, take note of what Samuel tells Saul,

“Does AHYH delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of AHYH? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of AHYH, he has rejected you as king.”[4]

In the end, Almighty God rejected Saul and  instructed Samuel to find another to be the king of Israel.[5]

Many theologians have offered that King Saul’s “sin”, his rebellion, was his offering of sacrifices outside of the Levitical laws (Saul wasn’t a Levite). However, Samuel’s words here leave open a much broader if not less obvious reason why God rejected Saul—because He didn’t want blood sacrifice. “To obey is better than sacrifice …” is consistent with what we see in the latter prophets’ rejection of the priesthood’s sacrificial system.

While Saul’s kingdom was not taken away from him immediately, he would eventually succumb to God’s punishment. The Biblical account is very clear about what happened to Saul during the final years of his reign,

“Now the Spirit of AHYH had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from AHYH tormented him.”[6]

Apparently, this evil spirit came and went at various times at will; only the psalmist David’s music (which an alert reader of the psalms realizes are filled with lyrics about God’s Character and His perfect Law!) would give Saul relief from the evil spirit’s influence.[7]

The length of Saul’s reign remains under question by scholars; however, according to Josephus, the Jewish historian, Saul reigned 20 years, 18 while Samuel was alive two more after that.

Hundreds of years later, there came another great leader named “Saul”, also from the tribe of Benjamin and also around 30 years old at the time of his “call from God”. Saul-turned-Paul had his life changed in one day on the Damascus road when he had his life-altering “vision”, was temporarily blinded, and became zealous for his gospel. This Saul also promoted blood sacrifice – human this time – as an avenue to spiritual forgiveness. The Most High God also afflicted this “Saul” with an evil spirit and this Saul, too, wanted to be rid of the demon. ‘Saul called Paul’ begged his Maker to remove this ‘thorn’, this ‘angel of Satan’, and God refused. Paul’s demon was still there, still afflicting him every so often just like King Saul. Yet Paul’s ‘spiritual kingdom’ was not taken away—not yet.

Like King Saul, Paul was still looked up to by many.  However, his thinking and his judgment were now compromised by evil. Plagued by a demon sent by God Almighty Himself, Paul was firmly ensconced in the hands of Satan. And through Paul, a powerful evangelist and church planter, the enemy of God successfully created a “different Jesus” with a “different gospel”, one that indeed came with a very “different spirit” attached to it.[8]

This parallel to Jesus is made obvious when we begin to see how Paul likened himself to Jesus the Messiah in numerous ways. To add emphasis and credence to Paul’s anti-gospel, the enemy of God pursued a path of the miraculous with Paul. To cap it off, all of this masquerade was—and is still being—perpetrated in the name of the real Yahushua ha Mashiach, Jesus the Messiah.

In Luke’s Acts of the Apostles, Paul continually worked miracles in the name of “Jesus Christ”; he reportedly healed people and raised the dead. Even objects that Paul touched were reportedly imbued with the power to heal. Paul also began to draw his own kind of wayward (Law-less) disciples into his false apostleship and false gospel. Paul took on followers called “disciples” and they were some twelve men in number![9]

Paul then specifically likened himself to Christ, saying about his infirmities within his letter to the Galatians:

“Even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel (aggelos) of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself. What has happened to all your joy? I can testify that, if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me.”[10]

Paul indeed had more than just a firm grip on the hearts and minds of these Galatia churches with his gospel up until this point in time. But note the last sentence of this passage here:

“Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?”[11]